Black Friday Attorney Preet Bharara Fired by Trump

Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, was recently one of 46 attorneys who were fired by the President Donald Trump administration.

What makes this story interesting is that Bharara was supposed to be one of the lawyers who avoided this purge, which is common among new presidential regimes. But Trump, who asked Bharara to stay on, must have changed his mind.

Many online poker players will remember Bharara as the one who led a charge against major online poker sites. The result was indictments for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB Poker, and Absolute Poker.

The aftermath saw Full Tilt, UB, and Absolute fold up because they failed to ring-fence player deposits and couldn’t repay the funds. While Bharara was the catalyst for the poker sites going down, he did a good job of ensuring that Full Tilt players got their money back

As for when he and Trump spoke in November regarding his future, Bharara said that he was convinced to resume his duties as the US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“The President-elect asked, presumably because he’s a New Yorker and is aware of the great work that our office has done over the past seven years, asked to meet with me to discuss whether or not I’d be prepared to stay on as the United States attorney to do the work as we have done it, independently, without fear or favor for the last seven years,” he explained.

“I have already spoken to Sen. Sessions, who is, as you know, is the nominee to be the attorney general,” Bharara added, “He also asked that I stay on, and so I expect that I will be continuing to work at the southern district.”

“I’m troubled to learn of reports of requests for resignations from the remaining US attorneys, particularly that of Preet Bharara, after the president initiated a call to me in November and assured me he wanted Mr. Bharara to continue to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District,” Schumer stated.

“While it’s true that presidents from both parties made their own choices for U.S. Attorney positions across the country, they have always done so in an orderly fashion that doesn’t put ongoing investigations at risk. They ask for letters of resignation but the attorneys are allowed to stay on the job until their successor is confirmed.”